episode_0010

I greeted the old man with an indifferent expression. To show off that I was still alive, I hung an arrow on the bow with my throbbing arm and pulled it out gently.

Inside, I was getting very angry and wanted to chase down the man who had injured my arm and point out each and every crime he had committed, but I couldn’t do that because of the uninvited guest who had come clinging to the man.

That’s how the world was originally. If you showed your weaknesses or revealed your true feelings to someone you didn’t know, you would get stabbed in the back.

Like a swan, I had to keep moving my feet hard even when it seemed like I would fall over at any moment.

“Hey, who are you?”

I didn’t even look at Mr. Bu and instead fired a question at the intruder.

Looking at him with his gloomy face and shabby clothes, he looked like someone who had just emerged from a room where he had been rotting away, unaware that the world had come to this.

“Uh…”

The way he trailed off and blushed as if it was the first time he had ever been asked such a question made my resolve stronger.

I made up my mind. That guy is a total idiot from now on.

If you can’t finish your self-introduction during the self-introduction time, what kind of person are you? That’s obvious. You either don’t have the ability to introduce yourself, or you don’t have the ability to talk, and you’ve disappeared without a trace.

Asking someone like that to explain their personal details would be a waste of time, so it was easier to just give them a nickname.

“There’s a dog over there.”

“Danhwa! What a piece of shit…! That guy is Park Cheon-deuk, and he said he came out to get medicine because his daughter was sick…”

I narrowed my eyes and slowly looked up at the old man.

The old man, who had learned enough about the consequences of my reaction, calmed down his temper and shut his mouth tightly.

“When I told you to lure zombies, you dragged your feet saying things got messed up and didn’t even report properly. You just created unnecessary tension and drained my energy, and then you said… You brought a bum who might or might not have children and thought of coming to the hospital alone?”

“I checked the photo too. Your daughter is really pretty. Anyway, that’s not what I meant. It seems like you really came to get the medicine…”

I haven’t come to my senses yet. What should I do with this idiot who can’t even tell if I’m being questioned or pestered? Should I just shoot an arrow at that face that I don’t even want to see?

I was still struggling with whether I should ignore the request of my arm, which was still groaning and begging me to stop.

“Student… I’m sorry for bothering you…”

“If you knew, you could just turn around and leave. Why don’t you know that?”

Mr. Gae Baek-su, whose face was filled with cowardice despite my words, did not even flinch. Instead, he just slowly approached the inside of the engine room.

He knew he was a nuisance, but he didn’t seem to want to die.

The dog looks like a leech.

“I feel bad saying this after saving my life thanks to Mr. Do-Hoon, but… my daughter is sick and really needs medicine. How can I not do it…?”

Oh, you already saved a person who was on the verge of death? And now you’re even sending him on an errand.

“This is my last treasure that my wife left me… Please…”

In the photo that Gae Baek-soo took out, which must have been taken before the world was ruined, there was a woman who looked like she was in middle school.

“Don’t worry. Danhwa is a kind person, even though he speaks harshly. He must have thought that he should help Cheondeuk even though he grumbled as soon as he saw him.”

“No, I was thinking, ‘Should I kill him?’ Didn’t you see my arrow?”

Of course, the old man was also included among the people I thought about killing.

“Danhwa… Don’t be like that. Even though Cheon Deuk looks like that, he’s a doctor. He’s said to know both surgery and internal medicine… He’s working alone, and if you take him to our shelter, it’ll be beneficial for both you and me.”

“It seems like it’s not a gain for me, but a loss. Every time I see that bastard, my heart feels heavy?”

“Shorts, don’t do that, okay…? Are you sure it won’t work?”

“Mister, you seem to have forgotten. We already have a job. Hyeji is waiting for me and you over there!”

I grabbed the old man’s arm and pulled him along, trying to force him to go with me, even if it meant sharpening his bow and making him feel stuffy.

“I don’t care if that bastard is a doctor or not. Come here…ugh!”

My arm muscles started to tingle. It seemed like the pull I had put on to show off my strength because of that damned dog had become poisonous.

“Short story! What’s wrong with you?”

“Write… It’s nothing, so come quickly.”

I gritted my teeth and tried to act as if nothing had happened, but the old man was faster. He ripped my sleeve off and swallowed a sigh as he looked at my swollen arm.

“It’s not nothing…”

“It’s nothing. Hyeji, you bumped into something while helping her. It’ll go away when you go to bed.”

That fucking human, that fucking bastard is watching. If he had a shotgun or something in his pocket, we’d both be dead!

The man took a spray bottle out of his backpack and started spraying it on my forearm. The stinging subsided a little, but it was still swollen.

“Mr. Cheon Deuk! Do you know how to see this?”

“Ah! Oh, of course!”

Gae Baek-su grabbed my arm, carefully pressing here and there to check my reaction, wondering if what he said about being a doctor was a lie, and then opened his mouth with a serious expression.

“It looks like your ligament is injured. It doesn’t look like a simple bruise… If it was a bruise, you would already be able to tell with your naked eye by the bruise that appears. But since there’s no such thing…”

The dog’s eyes slowly turned to my bow. The old man’s eyes also followed his gaze. I felt a sense of defeat, but I continued to diligently extend my flippers.

“Well, I guess it’s because I hit it too hard. Why are you looking at my bow?”

“Hmm… If you hit it hard, that might be possible. First, it would be best to not use your injured arm for about a week. It looks like you use a bow as a weapon, so you might not be able to hold it again. It also seems like you need to take care of it on an ongoing basis.”

You gloomy bastard. This is extortion. You’re subtly hinting that you’re out of commission now that you’re injured.

No matter how I looked at it, it was clear that he was telling me not to bother him when he couldn’t help me get the medicine.

“I decide whether I can use my arms or not. You’re just leaving me here like that, saying I need stability, and you’re thinking of eating my back to get medicine for your daughter who may or may not be there. Don’t do such tricks. It won’t work.”

“Mr. Cheon-deuk, I don’t think I can help you right now. As you can see, I cherish Dan-hwa a lot. I don’t want to leave you alone outside, not even in a shelter, while you’re injured… I’m sorry.”

“Oh, no. As someone who has a daughter, I know how you feel. My child is more important than someone else’s child. I know I have no shame in forcing it on you. Plus, you saved my life.”

It seemed as if Gae Baek-su was taking a slight step back.

Even though he looks like that, he’s married and has a daughter, so I guess his humanity itself isn’t trash, right?

“I’ve been checking my daughter’s condition well… I still have about a week to spare… Even if it’s not right away… If you could help me somehow…”

Cancel. You seem like a person without a conscience.

“No. It’s almost winter. We came out thinking this would be our last activity. It’s hard for you, but that doesn’t mean we should take risks in the winter.”

“That’s right… Yes…”

The face of the white-faced man began to turn black and dead.

You must have been really excited about the idea of eating my back, right? You even slyly threatened me. As if you had contracted some kind of disease that would make you a cripple for the rest of your life just because you hurt your arm while pulling a protest.

Do you think I’ve only been holding a bow for a day or two? I got hurt so many times when I first started learning archery, and I went to the hospital every time, but I’ve never heard anything like that.

“Don’t worry about the short story. You said a week? I’ll help you. Instead, I’ll need you to put some effort into treating the short story.”

“Of course! Of course!!! Thank you so much, Do-hoon. How did you do this…”

“No. I will charge you for the treatment of Danhwa as compensation for my help. You will need the help of a professional until you are fully recovered, so please stay at our shelter. I will provide a room for you and your daughter.”

There’s a limit to how nice a person can be. Why are you doing this and that to someone you just met today? Isn’t that completely insane?

“Hey! Who the hell lets someone into their house without permission? Is there any proof that this guy is a doctor? Did he just pretend to be serious after seeing this injury? What if he comes with some black criminals instead of his daughter? Do you really think about it…!”

“Shut up and get on my back. I can see you haven’t been able to move your hands since a while ago.”

Boom! Boom!

At that moment, a zombie was knocking on the engine room door that the old man had tightly closed.

Well, two adult men came down here from that cramped hospital, so there’s no way they wouldn’t have seen the zombies if they weren’t disabled.

“First of all, the situation seems urgent. It seems like we need to get out of here first. The short story here is probably ready, so follow me.”

“Yes, yes!”

The old man was slowly coming closer to me. It was clear that this fucking Terminator was trying to kill me by causing me shame.

“Hey, I’m fine!”

“What if you can walk by yourself? Danhwa, you won’t be able to climb a ladder, right?”

The man carried me on his back. Annoyingly, my thighs and buttocks were rubbed by the man’s hands during the process.

“Mr. Cheon Deuk, if you look in the right pocket of my vest, you will see a wire rope. Could you use that to secure my boots to my back?”

“Oh, that’s simple! I need to help you right away!!”

*

The smell of sweat emanated from the old man’s back. It was so strong that it even obscured the smell of blood and rotting corpses mixed with the wind blowing in from outside.

I’m at the hospital now. I’m at the gym now.

Is this gym crazy? If they have a member that smells this bad, shouldn’t they kick them out and tell them to wash up?

“At first I didn’t know what you were doing, but this is how you were going to write it… You’re really smart. I thought Do-Hoon was carrying three coils on his back and going back.”

Wheeeing.

The wire I installed was diligently pulling the coil up.

It wasn’t something that required a lot of mechanical power, so its speed was similar to the speed at which we were going up, but since so much effort was put into its durability, it didn’t seem like it would fall off in the middle.

“Isn’t that Hyeji-nyeon? She walks around with her head on her head instead of her head.”

I didn’t hesitate to use abusive language. Hyeji had to hear this kind of thing.

*

15 minutes ago.

“Oh, Mr. Do-hoon! You and Dan-hwa are like that, right? I told you I knew it when I saw you. There is a bit of an age gap between the two of you, but in this world, it’s hard to meet people who are compatible. Age gaps aren’t even a big deal these days, right? Yeah, yeah! When Dan-hwa suddenly told me to come over, I wondered what was going on, but when I thought about it while waiting, it was like that.”

When I went out to the ventilation shaft with Gaebaksu, maybe because the space was a little dark, Hyeji didn’t even realize I was on her back and came over to me loudly and spoke to the old man.

“Actually, it’s not something that a man and a woman should be ashamed of to hide from others when they like each other. After all, Danhwa’s younger brother is a bit shy, isn’t he? They say that the more prickly someone is, the more sensitive they are on the inside. They say that in the book too.”

“Huh…?”

The old man seemed dumbfounded by those words. But it seemed he wasn’t as dumbfounded as I was.

“Hey, get down.”

“No, it’s a short story…”

“Huh…? Short hair…No, why is your little brother riding on you?”

“Get down. Kill that damn bitch right now.”

This fucking old man wouldn’t let me go until the very end.